


goodbyes

by Rethira



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-08 17:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1135492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rethira/pseuds/Rethira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't want to say goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	goodbyes

They move into a little house eventually. A little one storey house with four rooms and an attic; he fixes up the attic into a little bedroom for Sunny. It’s only a little way from the landing strip as well, and Sunny finds her friend easily enough. It takes a while to get used to sleeping without the constant whirr of engines, without feeling the vibrations. Possibly, Hal will concede, spending the best part of nine years living at high altitude wasn’t really the best thing for them, but what else could they do?

It wasn’t safe to live on the ground until now.

He says it’s still not really safe and grumbles that they’re not in a defensible location, but Hal recognises it for what it is.

Snake doesn’t know what to do with himself.

After fixing up Sunny’s room – it takes him longer than it should’ve, and Hal can see the irritation in every movement of Snake’s body – Snake runs through countless hobbies. He’s always had a knack for learning things quickly. Well, physical things at any rate. Snake spends a lot of time carving, evidently comforted by the knife in his hand.

It’s quiet.

Quiet in a peaceful way, but old habits die hard, and Hal finds himself always worried he’s being followed when he comes back from grocery shopping.

At Snake’s request, Hal doesn’t tell anyone where they live. Privacy at the end of his life, and it’s not like Snake’s really had much privacy to speak of. Just the three of them for this. Just the three of them. As it should be.

They go to the cemetery. There’s a fresh grave there now. Three in a row, none of them marked with names. Snake never cries while he’s here. It’s not grief that draws him back. He leaves white lilies behind, but otherwise, there’s no sign he was there at all.

They start to keep things besides chickens. One day Snake comes back with a goat on a tether, and he won’t tell anyone where he got it. A week later he turns up with a piglet in his coat pocket. Ten days later it’s some rabbits, and Sunny tells him to stop bringing animals home because she’s running out of names. Snake looks like he hadn’t even considered that, and makes the mistake of asking what she’s named them – the chickens they know already. The goat is, Sunny announces, called the Boss, and the piglet is Revolver. The rabbits end up being Pain, Fury and Sorrow, and Hal decides to start introducing Sunny to things that _aren’t_ this.

Snake, for reasons entirely his own, brings home a kitten and says its name is Olga. Sunny spends the next few days torn between delight at her new kitten and not speaking to Snake for naming it Olga without asking her.

At some point, Snake takes up knitting.

Before they’re ready, a year’s gone by.

Snake’s very old by the end.

Tired. He sleeps a lot more than he used to, but he smiles more too. Every time he does, Hal has to fight back the tears.

He doesn’t want to say goodbye.

Sometimes he hears Sunny crying in her attic bedroom, and he wonders if he shouldn’t have sent her away. She’s already lost one parent after all, and it’s cruel to make her watch as she loses another. But it’s too late now, and she probably wouldn’t forgive him if he tried to send her away now.

And then it happens.

He wakes up and Snake – _Dave_ , he’s _Dave_ now – is still and silent and cold beside him.

He wakes Sunny with a sharp cry of grief, and she runs down the ladder Snake made for her and she grabs him and sobs _don’t go don’t go please come back Snake please don’t go_ but it’s too late.

They keep the funeral small.

A fourth grave joins the others.

They plant lilies around it.


End file.
